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Author Topic: Nolan vs Tarantino  (Read 2016 times)
SaberFan22
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« on: February 22, 2017, 02:44:13 PM »

Sorry to post 2 new topics in the same day, but I was having this debate with my dad and thought it might be interesting to get more opinions on the matter.

Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino?

To make this (sort of) fair, I'm just going to choose the 5 best movies of each (in my opinion) and match them. Magnum opus vs magnum opus, early work vs early work etc etc. It saves having to get

Memento vs Reservoir Dogs
The Prestige vs Kill Bill
The Dark Knight vs Pulp Fiction
Inception vs Inglorious Basterds
Interstellar vs Django Unchained

I would personally argue that Nolan makes the better, more intricate, complex and 'technically' great movies, while Tarantino makes movies which I find to be more to my taste and generally I find to be more entertaining.
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scifidude79
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« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2017, 03:52:56 PM »

Hm, this is a rough call.  Admittedly, I haven't seen two of the films on that list, Memento or Inception.  Inception just never really appealed to me from the trailers and I don't really think I ever felt an urge to see Memento either.

For the Nolan films I've seen, I didn't care for The Prestige.  I don't remember exactly what it was about that film, but it never resonated with me.  I saw it once and just didn't care for it.  Interstellar was OK, but it kind of dragged on and got too predictable at the end for my taste.  Technically and visually, it was stunning, but the storytelling was kind of long winded for my taste, and some of the space scenes kind of dragged on too.  The Dark Knight is freaking fantastic.  One of Nolan's best, in my opinion.  Nolan's Batman is dark, gritty and realistic.  It's what it would look like if Batman was the real human he's supposed to be, not the comic version.  His enemies are reality based too, and deadly.  Both Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart put together memorable performances, even though the late great Ledger gets most of the attention.  I really felt Eckhart did a great job as both Harvey Dent and his twisted split self, Two Face.  The movie, for me, is tied as Nolan's best work to date.

Now for Tarantino.  One of my favorites.  As a true student of film and entertainment in general, his style ranges.  Starting at the beginning, I absolutely love Reservoir Dogs.  It's a different take on the crime drama, with no actual footage shot of the crime itself, just the stuff leading up to it and the aftermath.  Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Steve Buscemi were all flawless in it.  Tarantino's script is full of the long (but not boring) conversations that would become one of his trademarks.  He tells a story, with almost none of his films having any pure flash moments.  Pulp Fiction is, hands down, his best work, in my opinion.  John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson are, of course, the standouts.  But, with an ensemble cast that includes the likes of Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Ving Rhames, Bruce Willis and Tarantino himself, there were no bad performances. (and they're not the only ones who did great) I don't know if everyone just brings their A+ game for the man, or if Tarantino is just a casting genius, but he always gets the perfect people for the roles.  The story is dark, gritty, hard hitting, at times funny, at times sick, and just all out awesome.  It's hard to even find a comparison for this film, as the whole thing is just flawless.  Kill Bill is an interesting two film series.  First, we have the almost straight action Vol. 1, which firmly proved that Tarantino can do action.  It's ultra violent and just plain awesome.  Taken with Vol. 2, which gives us more the long conversational style we're used to from Tarantino, which fills in most of the gaps and gives up back stories on the characters, we get just a great cinema experience.  And, the cast is fantastic.  Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen and David Carradine as the Deadly Viper Assasination Squad all put up great performances.  The rest, of course, were fantastic as well.  To me, Kill Bill is Tarantino's third best work after Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.  Inglourious Basterds.  Ooh, I need to watch this one again.  Tarantino's war epic, which he actually shelved to do Kill Bill.  Again, a blend of great storytelling and a dark and gritty film, but at times funny.  Christoph Waltz and Brad Pitt lead another great cast.  I'm so glad Christoph got an Oscar for this film, he did an incredible job.  Not only did he speak four languages in the film, but he did a fantastic job playing a character you really needed to hate, yet couldn't help loving at least on some level, just because his performance was that great.  Brad was an Oscar snub that year, unfortunately.  He also put up a tremendous performance.  The style is very Tarantino, which is mixing things that shouldn't work together but do.  Most of the movie is pretty standard war epic, but done in Tarantino style, but the beginning has a very spaghetti western feel to it.  Even though I have to read much of the film, I greatly appreciate that Tarantino never does that "this person is still speaking German, but we'll have them speak English so the audience can understand them" thing.  He kept them speaking the languages they should be speaking.  He also cast people who are correct to the countries they should be from; Americans playing Americans, Brits playing Brits, (except Mike Myers, but he can do a British accent) French people playing French people and Germans playing Germans.  This adds a great level of authenticity to the film.  It's a great, gritty and long but never draggy war film.  Plus, you have to appreciate that, in Tarantino's world, you can kill Hitler.  Not too many people questioned it, because it's Tarantino.  Now for Django Unchained.  To me, not Tarantino's best work.  Firstly, stand out performances by Christoph Waltz (another Oscar!) and Jamie Foxx.  Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson put on their usual level of performance, which is great, and everyone else did a great job.  I just didn't care for the movie's story.  I think it's the only Tarantino film I've seen where I actually got bored.  The best part for me is the end.  And, that's really all I have to say about that film.  It just didn't resonate with me.

OK, so I'm clearly a Tarantino fan.  Do I like Tarantino more than Nolan?  No, not really.  Firstly, as I said, I haven't even seen two of the Nolan films on the list, so Memento vs Reservoir Dogs and Inception vs Inglourious Basterds would obviously swing towards the films I've seen, but that's not fair, so I'll leave those alone.  The Prestige vs Kill Bill, well that obviously goes to Kill Bill for me, since I don't like The Prestige.  The Dark Knight vs Pulp Fiction is too close to call for me.  Personally, I love both of those films.  Interstellar vs Django Unchained is also too close to call, but that's because I didn't really care for either film.  And, my co-favorite Christopher Nolan film isn't even on the list.  That would be Batman Begins.  Yep, I like that one just as well as The Dark Knight.  I also really like The Dark Knight Rises.  So, for me, that actually puts Nolan pretty close to the same number of films that I really like.  And, I'm hoping the best films by both men are still to come.  Wink
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Darth Knox
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« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2017, 04:02:40 PM »

(Hold on to your hats, folks. This is gong to be a long one).

That is not a simple question to answer. I think we can agree that both are extremely talented directors, although their styles are vastly different. For me, it's best to look at them individually, explore their respective styles and filmography as well as look at how influential they have been.

Tarantino:
He is arguably the most influential filmmaker of his generation. Tarantino brought in the typically stylish 'mafioso' films peppered with delectable dialogue and panache. While Martin Scorsese was a doyen of the genre, having already set the bar sky high with Goodfellas in 1990. Could anyone surpass Goodfellas in terms of style if not skill? Enter QT.

Reservoir Dogs is one of the great films of the '90s. It had a novel narrative with great attention paid to the dialogue and characters and very little to the plot, which was a tad unusual. But it did put Tarantino on the map. And then came Pulp Fiction. As one the most talked-about films of the decade Pulp Fiction deserves every bit of praise it received. I think it one of two masterpieces that QT has made (the second being Inglorious Basterds).  It's non-linear narrative was often copied (rarely successfully) and Tarantino's panache for natural and snappy dialogue almost revolutionised cinema as a while.

Dialogue is one of the primary characteristics of Tarantino's films. If Pulp Fiction winning the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival wasn't enough, Tarantino became an icon of independent cinema who paved the way for a whole new generation of filmmakers rushing to copy him.

Over the years, Tarantino has switched up the genres he has worked in. He brings a lot of ideas to the table and his courage to make his film his way is admirable. However, one could say his filmography is uneven. Death Proof is widely considered his worst movie (although I really like it). Jackie Brown, his ode to the Blaxploitation movies of the 70s is massively underrated and while widely lauded as a great film, I found certain parts of Django Unchained to be unfocussed and slightly self indulgent.

Obviously there are other movies in his filmography that I haven't mentioned, but if I did that this would end up as an essay for film degree.

Moving on…..

Christopher Nolan :
When Tarantino made Jackie Brown, Nolan was in the process of making his first film, Following, in 1998. Working on a shoe-string budget, a relatively paltry $6000, he made a pretty decent film with a cast consisting of mostly unknown actors, real locations and took on several roles behind the camera.

Interestingly, before Harvey Keitel agreed to star in Reservoir Dogs, the move made the pieces of the puzzle fall perfectly into place as far as the producers, distributors and cast were concerned, Tarantino was going to make it with his friends at a budget of $30,000.

Two years later, in 2000, Nolan gave us the masterful Memento, an incredibly ingenious in film in terms of ideas and techniques, and was patently one of the best films of the '00s. And, yes, influential.

Like a man on a mission, Nolan made Insomnia and The Prestige in a short span of time, in 2002 and 2006 respectively, and clearly proved himself to be one of the modern masters of psychological thrillers. His fascination for themes such as existentialism, personal identity and psychology put him in the league of his peers, and his artistic maturity reached new levels before he ventured into mainstream cinema with Batman Begins in 2005, despite not being a fan of superheroes or comic books.

Nolan shot to stardom with The Dark Knight, considered the greatest superhero film ever made by some. The Dark Knight gave the character some emotional depth and a tangible personality, and was one of the movies that helped superhero movies become a legitimate genre and the box office juggernaut it currently it (particularly impressive considering how bad superheroes have become with Batman & Robin). This change was one for the ages.

While many people love The Dark Knight for Heath Ledger's Joker (and rightly so) that means they have overlooked how great a film it actually is. And then Nolan gave us the wonderfully mind-binding Inception.

Nolan has one advantage over QT. While Tarantino has made one bad film Nolan hasn't made any yet. Interstellar may be a bit bloated and badly paced in some areas, but it is NOT a bad movie. Nolan may have made some films that are less than brilliant, but he hasn't made a BAD one (yet).

It's too early to say if Nolan's contribution to the world of film is as significant as Tarantino's or not. Maybe, maybe not.

The argument could be made that Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were way more influential than anything Nolan has made. However Nolan has left his mark on the fimmaking landscape/ So I think it all boils down to personal taste. While I do love them both, I find that there are more movies in Tarantino's filmography that have rematch value. Plus the dialogue in QT's movies is more memorable and quotable.

So, overall, I would give this to QT. Just.
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LivingBrain
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« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2017, 05:03:59 PM »

QT wins for me, hands down.

I think Nolan is more on the David Fincher level, where he's an incredibly skilled auteur that has made some great movies, but has weaknesses he's yet to overcome that keeps him from being a master of cinema. For Nolan, his chief one is his reliance on exposition. THE DARK KNIGHT, for all of its great parts, often grinds to a halt to have characters (usually Alfred or the Joker) lay out the film's themes for you, and INTERSTELLAR is mostly comprised of characters sitting around and discussing scientific theory ad nauseam. On the flip side, INCEPTION features his expository style working extremely well, because whenever the characters explain something about the world it's either shown as they're explaining it, right after they explain it, or later in the movie.

He's also not as thematically sound as he's made out to be, with BATMAN BEGINS solving its plot by straight up betraying the protagonist's philosophy. INTERSTELLAR is similar. For all of its talk about how humans need to push forward and keep exploring space, it turns out the future humans have already transcended time and can solve things for us. I also don't think he managed to marry realism with the comic book genre in THE DARK KNIGHT. He came close, but stumbled in the ending by incidentally exposing how power-hungry comic book stories can be with his triumphant "ride off into the light to Hans Zimmer drums n' brass over a character monologuing about the necessity of somebody who can be above the law" spiel.

Now, when he works, he work really well, and I'd posit both MEMENTO and INCEPTION as his masterpieces, with THE DARK KNIGHT having masterpiece portions. He has a propulsive, Spielbergian editing style that can keep you engaged when used correctly, as shown in THE DARK KNIGHT's convoy sequence (which has geography cheats that you don't even notice because the editing is so good), MEMENTO's entire experimental structure, and INCEPTION's masterful balancing of FOUR DIFFERENT DREAM LEVELS. The way he marries the theatricality of magicians with the magic of filmmaking in THE PRESTIGE is great too, bringing along with it a deft thematic exploration of obsession.

QT, on the other hand, is straight up a master of cinema. Sure, he's made one bad movie, but he's made more GREAT movies than Nolan, and has shown an ability to adapt himself for different styles. Take away the dialogue he's known for, and you still have several movies that don't look like each other with completely different cinematic languages. PULP FICTION and DJANGO UNCHAINED are NOT the same movies, just like KILL BILL and THE HATEFUL EIGHT could not be more different.

It's also worth mentioning that PULP FICTION revolutionized cinematic storytelling, while THE DARK KNIGHT's supposed revolution of comic book movies has turned into the "grimdark" style most have an aversion to today.

QT also work masterfully with genre. It's no secret that he's a film nerd and fills his movies to the brim with references, but with those references comes a genuine understanding of what he's playing with. DJANGO UNCHAINED is brilliant because, rather than primarily focusing on how terrible slavery was like most other movies that tackle it, he straight up empowers a slave by making him the main character in a Western, a genre that has long been associated with hyper-American masculinity. He sees the other movies that tackle slavery by also recognizing its cruelty, but then takes it a step further by empowering a slave with a brilliant use of genre.

THE HATEFUL EIGHT is also one of the most complex explorations of American issues we've ever seen (stopping things there to avoid getting political).

One thing that needs to be brought up for both is how they both managed to make great films on very small budgets. RESERVOIR DOGS and MEMENTO are both masterful works of cinema, and an inspiration for any indie filmmaker that struggles to find all of the resources they need.

In the end, I think Nolan is a great filmmaker, but he hasn't reached the level of "master," and while QT may stumble (as laid out by Knox, who's right that DJANGO can be self-indulgent), he's more than proven himself time and time again, and has made a mark on cinema that will definitely last. Tarantino wins for me.
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Darth Knox
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« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2017, 05:17:32 PM »

I would just like to add that Tarantino has, not one not two but three, movies that can arguably be considered masterpieces (Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, even though I don't think Django is at the same level as PF or IB).

Currently, Nolan hasn't made a movie that could be considered a "masterpiece". Good movies - yes. Great movies - yes. But a masterpiece? Not yet.
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LivingBrain
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« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2017, 05:32:38 PM »

I would just like to add that Tarantino has, not one not two but three, movies that can arguably be considered masterpieces (Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, even though I don't think Django is at the same level as PF or IB).

Currently, Nolan hasn't made a movie that could be considered a "masterpiece". Good movies - yes. Great movies - yes. But a masterpiece? Not yet.

I like to push for MEMENTO and INCEPTION, but even then there's a slight feeling of, "I'm doing this to keep the Nolanites at bay."
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I like movies, Spider-Man, and lightsabers.

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Darth Knox
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« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2017, 05:35:35 PM »

I like to push for MEMENTO and INCEPTION, but even then there's a slight feeling of, "I'm doing this to keep the Nolanites at bay."
Both are great movies. But "masterpieces"? I don't think so.

And what are "Nolanites"? Sounds dangerous. Do we need to assemble the Avengers?
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LivingBrain
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« Reply #7 on: February 22, 2017, 08:45:54 PM »

Both are great movies. But "masterpieces"? I don't think so.

And what are "Nolanites"? Sounds dangerous. Do we need to assemble the Avengers?

Nolanites are the hyper-obsessive Nolan fanboys (often in their teens) that think he's the GOAT and will defend him tooth and nail to the death. Combating them requires the full forces of both the Avengers and the Justice League.
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I like movies, Spider-Man, and lightsabers.

That's about it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My username and avatar may be of a villain, but I like Light Side points.

Darth Knox
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« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2017, 08:49:43 PM »

Nolanites are the hyper-obsessive Nolan fanboys (often in their teens) that think he's the GOAT and will defend him tooth and nail to the death. Combating them requires the full forces of both the Avengers and the Justice League.
So pretty much like any hardcore fanboy - reality, perspective and rational thought are just non-existent entities with them.
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